Behind the Couch

The lovely folks over at Paracinema HQ are having a contest. Anyone who purchases a magazine in the month of October is automatically entered into a raffle to win an AMAZING prize pack. Just head over to paracinema.net and pick up an issue for a chance to win. Each single issue purchased is another entry. For example: 2 copies of issue 7 equals your name 2 times in the drawing. Just remember, subscriptions do not count. It is only for printed issues already in existence. So what's in this amazing pack of prizes? Well, I'll tell you. * A year subscription (4 issues) of Paracinema Magazine * 3 releases from Pink Eiga including Tsumugi - Special Edition, New Tokyo Decadence - The Slave and Sexy Battle Girls . * Viva the uncut & unrated release from Cult Epics . * A copy of Trash Cinephile the "irreverent guide to exploitation cinema" by Blake Ryan. * A Fright Rags t-shirt the style and size of your choosing (must be a regular "horror t-shirt...

1975 Dir. Bryan Forbes When former photographer Joanna Eberhart (Katherine Ross) and her family move to the sleepy town of Stepford, it isn’t long before she suspects something sinister is afoot. All of the women in Stepford have an uncanny hankering to do whatever it takes to become the perfect housewife. What makes matters even stranger is Joanna’s unshakable feeling that the men of Stepford, including her own husband Walter (Peter Masterson), are involved in something diabolical that transforms the women of Stepford into empty shells of their former selves. But what could it be? I would love to be able to watch The Stepford Wives again for the first time – without knowing anything about it. From the outset, it is obvious that something sinister lurks beneath the pristine exterior of Stepford’s white picket fences and expertly maintained hedges and it soon becomes obvious that the town has a sick and twisted underbelly full of dark secrets that David Lynch might be envious of....

The latest issue of Paracinema is set to hit shelves soon. Issue 7 includes such features as ' Deconstructive Feedback: The Cinema of Larry Cohen ' by Adam Protextor, ' The Bikinis, Hairspray, and Shattered Ceilings of Bimbo Feminism: Anita Rosenberg’s Modern Girls and Assault of the Killer Bimbos ' by Jonathan Plombon and (shameless self-promotion alert) ' Cold Cinema: Emotional Glaciation and Active Spectatorship in Michael Haneke’s Funny Games ' by me. Why not head over to Paracinema and order a copy now . Before its too late!

Sexy Killer is the story of Barbara (Macarena Gómez), a promising student at an exclusive Spanish university, who also just happens to be a psychotic serial killer. Events become increasingly complicated when her victims are resurrected by a couple of medical students hoping to solve the case of the 'campus killer.' However, said victims, whilst only too happy to help a zombie detective with his enquiries, suffer the unfortunate side-effect of an insatiable craving for human flesh... They don't let this stop them though and are soon making their way to the campus Halloween party to seek revenge... Kinky, kitsch and ludicrously over-the-top, Sexy Killer  resembles what might happen if Pedro Almodóvar ever directed a slasher movie. It perfectly balances humour with gross-out effects and lovingly references a plethora of old favourites such as Friday the 13th, Scream, Re-Animator and the work of George Romero. Irresistible fun. Head over to  Eye for Film  to read my ful...

1963 Dir. Mario Bava AKA The Three Faces of Fear (I tre volti della paura) Mario Bava’s Gothic horror anthology consists of three different tales of horror, each with their own unique tone and style, but all containing that inimitable Bava touch. Each of the films unfolds as an exercise in style, tension and atmosphere, bolstered by intriguing stories that carefully unfold to reveal a deadly sting in the tale. As a whole, Black Sabbath is most satisfying, and none of the segments outstay their welcome. What makes it all even more appealing is the introduction of the film by none other than Boris Karloff himself, waxing lyrical on the mechanics of fear, the uncanny, things that go bump in the night and a treatise on what makes a film scary and why. Each segment is introduced by a title card and contains its own share of nightmare-inducing moments; all beautifully captured by Bava’s ever prowling camera, and rendered dreamlike in the vivid lighting. First up is the giallo-esqu...

1966 Dir. John Gilling Harry and Valerie Spaulding move to the small Cornish village of Clagmoor when they inherit the house of his brother – who died under mysterious circumstances. Treated with contempt and mistrust by the villagers, Harry and Valerie are shunned. To make matters worse, a number of locals have been turning up dead, with mysterious bite marks on their necks. Harry’s investigations lead him to the home of the sinister Dr Franklyn and his mysterious daughter Anna, and he soon uncovers the horrific secrets of an ancient curse and a monstrous reptilian creature with a taste for human blood! Filmed back to back with Gilling’s Plague of the Zombies , using the same sets and several of the same cast members, The Reptile is perhaps one of Hammer’s more overlooked gems. Often unfavorably compared to Plague of the Zombies , the film nevertheless still manages to entice the viewer into its tightly coiled mystery with an alluring atmosphere and a number of compelling perf...

1977 Dir. John Hayes When Professor Andrew Boran (Kirk Scott) decodes messages received from deepest space that coincide with recent natural disasters, his investigations lead him to a spooky convent where the inhabitants are not what they seem. They are actually aliens attempting to destroy earth because it has become too polluted and diseased. No, really. Dearest Reader – allow me to present the deliciously entertaining schlock that is – End of the World. Mysterious messages from the cosmos! Parallel dimensions! Cloning! Laser beams! Christopher Lee! Nuns from outer space! Well, strictly speaking the nuns aren’t really from outer space – they are clones of nuns inhabited by the forces of an alien race who are desperately trying to leave earth and return to their own planet… And even though they have effortlessly mastered the concepts of inter-stellar time travelling and stuff, they still need the help of a mere mortal human scientist to assist their attempts to leave earth. You...

Cradle Will Fall is a chaotic and deeply upsetting film about a young woman who snaps under the pressure of trying to raise four young children on an isolated farmhouse while her husband works away from home. Going utterly berserk, Mommie Dearest (a thoroughly deranged Colleen Porch) starts offing her sprogs in increasingly grisly ways... A sort of Flowers in the Attic for the Splat Pack generation.  Head over to  Eye for Film  to read my full review of this taut, yet grim little shocker.

2009 Dir. George Clarke Six contestants. One million quid. And a shitload of zombies. A group of contestants prepare to fight to the death on extreme reality TV show The Knackery. With a reward of £1 million for the last player left standing, the stakes are high. They are raised even higher when a horde of flesh hungry, genetically modified zombies are unleashed to liven things up a bit… Building on the reputation they cultivated for themselves with Battle of the Bone , Yellow Fever Productions have returned to the stripped back, no frills and no holds barred approach to filmmaking that made their debut feature so appealing. Shot in five weeks on a budget of roughly £100, the first cut of The Knackery premiered at the Fellow Fever Independent Film Festival in Belfast last weekend. A ‘knacker’ is someone who slaughters worn-out livestock and sells their flesh, bones and hides. The Knackery is a gruesome reality TV show in which contestants must battle it out to the deat...

2009 Dir. Wyatt Weed While renovating an old church, construction workers unearth an ancient stone cross and what appears to be a wooden stake. Removing the stake from the ground they inadvertently revive Laura (Caitlin McIntosh), an amnesiac vampire who crawls out of the earth and sets off across the city trying to remember who she is and what happened to her. As she desperately tries to piece together her tragic past, she is pursued by the mysterious Julian Hess (Jason Contini) who is aware of her true nature and hell-bent on sending her back to the grave… Shot on a miniscule budget over several weeks, Shadowland marks the feature length debut of writer/director Wyatt Weed and was recently screened at Belfast’s first Yellow Fever Independent Film Festival where it received an award for Best Director. The film unfolds as the epic tale of a woman who has suffered a terrible trauma and seeks to uncover her past to piece together her life. The fact that she is actually a latent va...

2008 Dir. Mark Colegrove Banned in 492 Countries! Private Investigator Jack Steele (Larry Gamber) is hired by a mysterious treasure hunter to help him locate the lost treasure of Marco Polo. Steele’s quest brings him to a strange island off the coast of Argentina rumoured to be populated by a lost tribe of cannibals. As Steele and his small group of treasure hunters explore the island, they realise that the rumours are true and they must utilise all their resources to stay alive and make it off the island in one piece… But who is the bizarre recluse, Alexis Kinkaid (Keith Tveit Langsdorf)? And why do everyone’s lips move out of sync with what they’re saying? Screened as part of Belfast’s first Yellow Fever Independent Film Festival – and winner of Best International Film - Isle of the Damned is a shameless throwback to 80s Italian exploitation movies such as Cannibal Holocaust, Cannibal Ferox and Deep River Savages – with added satire. The work of Ruggero Deadato is specifi...

2008 Dir. Kerry Anne Mullaney A mysterious neurological pandemic has ravaged Britain. Seeking refuge in a solitary farmhouse in deepest, darkest Scotland, Daniel (Alton Milne), a young man reeling from the death of his family, meets April (Sandra Louise Douglas), a secretive young woman who has been living in isolation for some time. The two eventually forge a tenuous friendship until the arrival of a stranger throws them into turmoil. As well as dealing with serious trust issues, the three survivors must also contend with the infected population besieging the farmhouse on an increasingly frequent basis… The Dead Outside , a stark post-apocalyptic psychological horror film, was screened in Belfast recently as part of the Yellow Fever Independent Film Festival . Intelligent and thoughtful, at times it resembles a sort of pared down, minimalist  28 Days Later . Filmed with a minuscule budget and fully utilising what is essentially one location, the film plays out as a claustrop...

Yellow Fever Productions is an independent production company based in Belfast. In 2008 they produced the award winning Battle of the Bone – a zombie flick set in Belfast on the Twelfth of July and featuring two rival communities forced to put aside their differences and come together to vanquish a marauding horde of the living dead. Not content to produce award winning films, Yellow Fever have organised their own independent film festival right here in Belfast, which kicked off this weekend at the Stormont Hotel. Amongst the film screenings on offer, attendees have also been treated to exclusive workshops, Q&A sessions and a number of special guests. Festival organiser and founder of Yellow Fever Productions , George Clarke, set up the event as a means to support and promote local independent filmmakers and provide them with a platform to showcase their work; as well as giving those in attendance the opportunity to see what other independent filmmakers from around the world ...

1960 Dir. Roger Corman When she returns to her family home after their engagement, Madeline Usher is visited by her fiancée Philip Winthorpe, who wants her to return to Boston with him. Her brother, the severely melancholic Roderick opposes this suggestion. Philip discovers that the Usher lineage has been afflicted by an all consuming malady and that the siblings, the last of the Ushers, believe they are cursed to descend into insanity like their ancestors did before them. A series of morbid incidents unfold over the coming days as events seem set to reach a horrific climax bringing an end to the Usher bloodline, once and for all… It suddenly occurred to me, as such things usually do, that it’s been several months since I last watched anything featuring Vincent Price. Disgraceful. So, after I poured a glass of Russell’s Cellar’s finest merlot, I settled down to watch Roger Corman’s first Poe adaptation, The Fall of the House of Usher. Setting the standard for all his other Poe ...

1940 Dir. Jean Yarbrough Dr Paul Carruthers (Bela Lugosi) devises a plan to extract revenge on his employers, the owners of a cosmetics company, whom he believes have exploited and betrayed him, getting rich on a product he created. Concocting a new aftershave (!), he offers it to the sons of his employers and then releases an electrically enlarged bat, trained to hone in on the distinct aftershave (!!), and slaughter its wearer. The series of mysterious deaths sparks the interest of roving reporter Johnny Layton (David O’Brien) and photographer, One-Shot McGuire. The two set out to investigate the murders and put a stop to the diabolical mastermind orchestrating them, before they too become victims of the ‘death-diving’ giant bat. The Devil Bat was produced by PRC (Producers Releasing Corporation), one of the more modest production studios of Hollywood’s ‘Poverty Row.’ PRC produced mainly low budget B-movies, particularly horror films, westerns and melodramas. The film compris...